Has anybody collected together weather stats so one can easily see how many days are light medium or windy sailing days?

Discussing the X1 with a few people, we seem to agree that at least in South England, inland waters perhaps 80% of the time the wind is light - although we probably remember the windier conditions more. So my real contention is that on inland waters is most sailing days are in light winds.

What do you think? What percentage of sailing days (including those you don't even bother going out in) would you classify as light medium and heavy? Say where you are talking about - obviously places on the sea or with sea breezes would be windier.

I read somewhere - may even have been on the Met Office site (somewhere!) - that the average windspeed in UK is 10mph (or was it knots?).

But it varies hugely from season to season. Wednesday series usually see a couple of drifters where people creep home, but last season we had trapezing winds every week on the Medway, and not just downstream away from the buildings.

Most dinghy classes have evolved such that they are about right in average conditions in my experience, and work remarkably well over the range, when you consider that because of the square law, a change from 10 to 11mph implies a 20% increase in heeling moment.

When I designed the PlusPlus I did some research with what I could find out on line (rather less than there is now I suspect), and from what I could find out not only do you get windy years and quiet years, you get windy decades and quiet decades.

Most of the Met Office data - from which all the various sources listed above are derived - are data collected at 10m and are average daily/monthly data. Apart from being able to (possibly) spot areas that are windier than others - these are not much value for analysing sailing conditions for lots of reasons

- windspeed at the centre of effort of your sail is going to be a lot different than 10m wind speeds - you can correct down to the surface for different heights but that will only be valid on the largest lakes/ open sea.

- daily average wind speed is lowered significantly by nighttime reduction due to thermal effects

- orography

- etc etc.

I know of a bunch of people researching near surface wind speeds - "can of worms" doesn't even get close!.

Mark

P.S Jim is right about windy years/decades - the big global circulation effects (ENSO etc. have an effect)

When I designed the PlusPlus I did some research with what I could find out on line (rather less than there is now I suspect), and from what I could find out not only do you get windy years and quiet years, you get windy decades and quiet decades.

it's true, last year was a windy year iirc. I certainly got plenty of planing sessions in after work on my board. Contrasted to the year prior, where I spent a lot time crouched inboard for my evening sailing and rarely bothered with the board.

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